ELi5 How a cameraman at a sports event able to track a fast moving ball with such a great focus on it?
In: 2760
A whole lot of skill and practice. Those camera operators are some of the best in the business and are amazing to watch at work.
Cameraman here.
For soccer, it really comes from practice, I can’t explain it otherwise.
Your first attempts will be awful, but with time you’ll learn to know what’s gonna happen a split second before it actually happens.
You can’t see the ball in the viewfinder, but you can recognize patterns and postures the player adopt when playing the ball.
A good trick is to stay wide when you’re still working, and leave the details to the other colleagues who will have one task at a time.
Worked with people who make NFL TV programmes, the cameras they were using 4 years ago were 4k cameras. The camera operator has a screen with a mark which shows the centre of the frame – operator just has to keep the ball in the cross.
There’s an additional rectangle with dotted lines which shows the 10% border of the HD image, The operator tries to keep the ball in that box.
There’s another operator who can move the actual HD box if that’s needed too.
The actual lenses will have image stabilisation features that ensure the image is focused as the camera tracks the action
I’ve worked as a camera man for both sports and other forms of TV and Film. One thing I can say, is a good director in the production truck will cover a lot of mistakes made by camera men, and even the best camera men aren’t shooting things perfectly for an entire event, which is fine, because the the director of the broadcast should only be taking a shot if it’s good, and they’ll get off of a a shot and back to something more generic if the camera guy loses the action.
As for focus, the lenses on a sports broadcast camera, and a lens on a camera used in film are very different.
The broadcast camera is usually a zoom lens, and the more you zoom out, the longer your focal range gets, which means everything in that range will look in focus, and once you’ve got focus for the area you’re covering, and your camera is locked down in one spot, you’re not going to be adjusting for focus a whole lot.
In some sports, like Hockey, when you’re controlling the hard camera that’s locked on a wide shot above center ice, and the puck is moving around real fast, the first few minutes of it, you’re gonna be pretty stressed trying to follow the puck, but after a few minutes you’re gonna start learning to read the actions of the players, and you shoot accordingly.
For the cameras at ice level with tighter shots shooting one specific area of the ice, honestly, you’re gonna follow the action just like everyone else, but the the broadcast isn’t going to use your shot unless you’ve actually got something good in your zone anyway.
There are also tools, like inverting the black and white on your viewfinder that will help in some sports, so rather than following a small black dot, you’re following a bright white dot, or vice versa.
Here’s the trick. Every sports broadcast camera has a role. And depending on the sport and how many cameras you have, will decide what roles you can cover.
Basketball/Hockey:
1 camera is the “game” camera. This camera is up a little high, so it can see every player. The operators job it to keep most players and the ball in their shot at all times. They need to make live moves that are stable and not jarring to the player, often, you see an entire half of the playing surface. Sometimes this camera will completely lose the puck on screen, because the puck is on the near side, and blocked by the boards. The operator has to make their best guess as to where the puck is, based on where the players are going.
Another camera is the “Tight” camera. This camera will usually sit next to the “game” camera. Their job is to be used for cut-aways in between action. Close ups of players, fans etc. During gameplay, they are to follow the puck or ball or whatever the director/producer want. Here’s the key, they aren’t always live. They shot whatever they can, and their camera is fed into a replay machine. If the camera operator gets the shot, you’ll see that replay. If they don’t get the shot, you’ll never know. So while they don’t miss a ton, there is always a safety net.
Football has 2 or 3 cameras up top, 2 on the different 25 yard lines, and sometimes one at the 50. If you have 2 at 25 yard lines, those cameras will trade off who is the game and who is the tight. The game camera will be the camera closest to the action.
BUT, the biggest answer, is practice. You are watching camera operators on television that have thousands of games under their belt. in a single NBA season, a camera operator will see over 3,500 FGA. They learn little tricks and tips and tendencies. Some of them have played/coached that sport and can anticipate what the players will do.
I’m sure I’ve missed some nuances here, and there may be some regional differences.
TLDR: Practice, lots of practice. And not every move and shot is perfect.
Source: 15+ years experience in watching people play with their balls.
I was a cameraperson a long time ago before the gear was as sophisticated as it is now, and the answer is to keep your other eye open and practice a lot. It is true, a golf ball in midair is mostly guesswork.
Sometimes during NFL games a good play action pass or trick play will fool the cameraman for a second and they start to pan away from the ball
I ran camera for college football for about 15 years. Short answer is practice, long answer is practice and remarkable technology.
First thing to keep in mind is the cameras used aren’t your point and shoot style that regular consumers buy for $1000 or less. A single camera set up is hundreds of thousands of dollars with a couple getting into the millions.
They are made to do exactly this type of shooting so having the proper equipment makes the job 1000s of times easier.
Second is the practice and experience. The way the cameras and the controls work how much or little force to use when focusing, zooming, turning the camera on the tripod, ext. The cameras are usually super balanced and can be turned with zero effort. Having said all that the camera guys still mess up frequently (see pump fake shots!) but unless you know what to look for a good camera operator can mask mistakes and make the shot still look decent.
I compare it a lot to playing a new video game. When you first get it and don’t know what all the buttons do, what combos you can hit, and how much you can push the envelope and still “survive”.
But after a few hours of play time and some basic instruction most people get very fluid with the movements of the game. It works the same way with running a camera. Your just pushing buttons and levers and turning your screen.
It got to be second nature on kick off to start off showing the whole kicking team and once the ball is kicked be able to zoom in on the football in the air full frame before backing out enough to get the person catching the ball fully in shot before he catches it. Looks impressive but is one of the easier things to do once you get the hang of it because the movement and speed of the ball stay very consistent.
Hope this helps!
So I’m seeing both good info in this thread as well as completely wrong info from people who have no clue what they’re talking about. Let me start by saying I am a current sports camera operator and have worked on ESPN broadcasts for many different professional sports teams. Basketball, softball,baseball, hockey, football, rugby etc.
The cameras and lenses used in these productions are very expensive, the box lenses are parfocal lens like u/drinkyourwaterbitch linked to a video explaining and they can be $200,000+ just for the lens, and professional sports games will likely have 5-10 of those cameras.
When it comes to tracking a ball for example it’s a combination of experience of the operator, watching the players movements, and listening to the director on coms. There is some pretty neat technology’s out there but on the camera operator side of things it’s a lot more basic and skill/experience based than you would expect
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nnH_rcx6yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nnH_rcx6yw)
[https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s5-u38ykhbU](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s5-u38ykhbU)
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